All Forklifted Up

Manna from heaven: a 12,000-pound forklift is airdropped to a remote U.S. base in Afghanistan / Air Force photo by Jeffrey Allen

The best thing about the military is the way young men and women in uniform get things done. What they get done, of course, isn’t always their choice. Take the airdrop mission flown last week by the 774th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron out of the main U.S. base in Afghanistan at Bagram: the troops air-dropped a six-ton forklift to a remote forward operating base from the belly of a C-130 Hercules.

“The reason we dropped the forklift is due to the fact of the prevalence of IEDs in the area and on the roads,” Maj. Jon Locklear, aircraft commander for the mission, told the Air Force News Service. Absent the heavy airdrop, “more cargo would have to be transported by ground, and put our soldiers in more danger with possibly more causalities” from such improvised explosive devices.

Why does this remind me of those black-and-white westerns I used to see as a kid every Saturday at the local movie theater? You know, the ones where the hero was slowly being swallowed by quicksand?